CHAP. V. DRAWERS OF WATER. 121 



home from the house of my friend on the dark evenings were 

 sometimes enlivened by two or three slave boys sent with me 

 with a lantern, who occasionally amused themselves and me 

 by marching on before me to the rude music of a Jew's harp 

 and a little drum, both apparently of native manufacture, I 

 was, however, more frequently gratified in beholding the large 

 number of fire-flies flitting about in great numbers, with their 

 singularly brilliant greenish sort of light, at times close to my 

 face, and then among the adjacent paling or vegetation. 



My house was so situated in the midst of the settlement as 

 to afford frequent opportunities for observing some of the 

 habits and usages of the people around me. Their houses, 

 with several others, stood in a large enclosure, part of which 

 was cultivated as a garden. In the front was a well, from 

 which many of the houses in the neighbourhood were supplied 

 with water. The well was about twenty feet deep, sunk 

 through the sand, which was kept up by boards at the sides. 

 The water was drawn up in a large bullock's horn fastened to 

 the end of a string made of bark, and let down by the hand 

 to the water. Numbers of slave girls came every morning 

 with long bamboo canes for water. These canes were six or 

 eight feet long, and the partitions at the joints inside being 

 broken, formed cylinders three or four inches wide, in which 

 the water was conveyed from the well to the adjacent houses. 

 This water, when first drawn, was not clear, but when filtered 

 or allowed to stand, was tolerably good. I succeeded in ob- 

 taining a photograph of the end of my house and the yard 

 adjacent, as well as portraits of several of the slaves who came 

 daily to the well for water. In the same enclosure, other 

 slaves might often be seen pounding rice in a large wooden 

 vessel to separate the husk from the grain. 



Many of the natives came daily to my house, and among 

 them some yoimg chiefs holding subordinate offices in the 

 place, who asked me to teach them English, proposing to 



